The still-unfolding Wayne Rooney saga proves beyond doubt the fickle nature of the beautiful game
Supporting a football club, most would agree, is an irrational pursuit. Fans spend a fortune every season watching their team play. They stay up till the wee hours, celebrate the highs, sulk about the lows and in short, treat the club as more than just a sporting entity. A 15 year old defeat still rankles, or a victory maintains its glow, as the case might be. This irrationality makes football what it is. There’s this siege mentality among football fans which is hard to find anywhere else. The motto seems to be: “You’re either with us or against us.”
For fans, their club and it’s players are beyond compare. They hate players who leave their clubs and hope that they never succeed in any walk of their footballing life. Memories are short, especially when they are good ones. It’s the bitter ones that linger, fuelling the irrational passion for the beautiful game.
And so it is with Wayne Rooney. He said in March this year that he wanted to stay at United for life, and no one was happier than his fans. They stuck by him, chanted his name in the stands and defended him against every person who called him overrated in the aftermath of England’s disastrous World Cup outing in South Africa earlier this year. But the irrational football fan is also extremely naive. He doesn’t see footballers as employees of the club who are within their rights to quit anytime a better offer comes along. After all don’t we all do the same in our respective careers? So why not footballers who are offered a salary of over 150,000 pounds a week. As Indian national football team coach David Houghton puts it, “Money talks loudest in modern-day football and players want to safeguard their interests.” Clubs like Manchester City which are owned by Arab billionaire Sheikh Mansour offer players ridiculous amounts of wages. In Spain, Real Madrid are known to splash the cash to get the best players. In the existing scenario, Houghton believes it will get worse if football’s governing bodies FIFA and UEFA don’t do anything about it.
Loyalty is an anachronism in football. What else could explain the fact that as we go to press, comes the news that Rooney has signed a new five-year deal with United. “I’m sure the fans over the last week have felt let down by what they’ve read and seen. But my position was from concern over the future. The fans have been brilliant with me since I arrived and it’s up to me through my performances to win them over again,” he is quoted as saying. But after the events of the last few days will fans see Rooney in the same light? Of course, they will eventually. It might take more than a few goals in the next few games but they will be back chanting his name. That is how fickle football fans are. However, there is a crack in the relationship and it will take time to restore it .
Fans like to believe that when a player says he will be at a club for life, he will never leave. The reality, however, is that very few players mean it. This is why you appreciate the likes of Carragher or Juventus’ Alessandro Del Piero who stuck by the club even when they were relegated to Italian football’s second division. They resisted offers from some of the biggest clubs in the world. Ryan Giggs joined Manchester United at the age of 14 and is still going strong at 37. They have stuck with their clubs through the best and worst of times. “They are a dying breed. Modern-day footballers get too much money too early in life, and it’s futile to expect loyalty from them,” says football commentator Novy Kapadia. But for every Giggs there is a Carlos Tevez and for every Del Piero there will be a Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
Most players kiss the club badge on their jerseys to show their loyalty. However, it is just a token act and doesn’t mean much. So when Rooney kisses the United badge again, the irrational fan’s heart will be suffused with a warm glow. The head, as we know, doesn’t matter.
